There is no lack of youthful courage at the Gate, where the new joint artistic director, Natalie Abrahami, makes her debut with Fernando Arrabal's 1964 absurdist play. Set in a breaker's yard, it is a rewrite of the Passion story, but owes much more to Lewis Carroll. It ends in a crucifixion, with a crown of thorns made of fairy lights, but its theme of betrayal and its whip-wielding secret police perhaps recall the fate of Arrabal's own father, a republican who disappeared during the Spanish civil war, apparently betrayed by his own wife, a devout Catholic.
Lorna Ritchie transforms the entire auditorium into a dump, where the wrecked cars serve as a downmarket B&B. It is ruled over by a maître d'hotel-cum-pimp, who offers his guests a number of services, including sex with Dila, a much-abused Mary Magdalene figure. Ritchie's atmospheric design draws no boundaries between stage and auditorium, creating an immersive experience that adds an extra layer of dislocation to Arrabal's scenario in which birth and death, love and cruelty are odd bedfellows.
But design alone cannot make a show. The play certainly does not stint on the symbolism as it gradually becomes clear that this graveyard is also a ramshackle garden of Gethsemane, where Fodere, who has fed thousands with a tin of sardines, will be betrayed and meet his end. It is all a bit heavy-handed and short on humour, and despite a game cast, the production lacks fluidity and the quick, light touch that might stir this old crock of a play into some semblance of dramatic life.
· Until December 1. Box office: 020-7229 0706.
